Iraq’s Barham Salih threatened by Iran-backed militias before meeting with Trump
Iraqi president Barham Salih. Photo: Reuters
BAGHDAD,— Iraq’s President Barham Salih is set to meet with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, amid threats made by Iran-backed back Iraqi militias to dissuade the Iraqi President not to do so.
On Tuesday, two militias designated as terrorist groups by the US, Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba Movement made threats against the Iraqi President, telling him not to meet his American counterpart. Both militias fall under the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) umbrella.
“We emphasize the necessity of Barham Salih committing to not meeting stupid Trump and the squad of killers that accompany him,”Kataib Hezbollah security official Abu Ali al-Askari said in a Tuesday tweet.
According to his second day Davos schedule, President Trump will meet Salih at 5:30 am Eastern Time (1:30 pm in Erbil). This will be the second meeting between the two presidents, who met in New York on the fringes of a UN General Assembly session last September.
The meeting between the two leaders comes hot on the heels of a spike in US-Iran tensions that has played out in Iraq, including the killing of 25 fighters from the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah in targeted US strikes on a base near the Iraq-Syria border.
Hostilities culminated in the January 3 assassination of high profile Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and the deputy head of the PMF Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis. Iran responded on January 7 by firing ballistic missiles at bases hosting US troops in Iraq.
The President is already facing immense pressure from Shiite blocs – especially those with strong ties to Iran – to appoint one of their nominees as the replacement to caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned last month amid pressure from the country’s anti-government protesters and the country’s highest religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Salih has held off on the appointment, insisting that the demands of protesters – who have largely dismissed candidates for the premiership as perpetrators of cronyism, corruption and sectarianism – be met. The new premier will be tasked to form a government amid protester demands for deep-rooted political change and concrete socio-economic improvements.
Over 500 people have been killed in the nearly four months since protests began on October 1, according to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights.
If the Salih-Trump meeting proceeds, “there will be a stance on the part of Iraqis towards him for violating the will of the people, ignoring the pure blood that this gang spilled,” al-Askari added, referring to Iraqi lives lost due to US military action.
“We will then say, ‘You are not welcome, and our free children will work on expelling him from the honorable and mighty Baghdad’,” he threatened.
The playing out of US-Iran hostility in Iraq has squarely united Shiite blocs in Iraqi parliament and politicians against the US and its presence in Iraq, with the Iraqi government asserting that US forces must leave the country.
Nujaba said it is “dismayed” that “the one whom represents Iraq” would meet with the President of “the occupier” US despite an Iraqi parliamentary resolution to expel American troops, “especially that the President is the main authority in preserving Iraq’s sovereignty, safety of its territory and its sanctity”, the militia said in a Monday statement.
“We don’t know how these bloody hands [of the US President] with the blood of martyrs can be shaken,” the Nujaba statement read.
“Amid these difficult circumstances, we will not accept, the meeting with the killer of our brothers, the violator of our country’s sovereignty, and the occupier of our land,” it added.
“We hope the President takes a brave, patriotic, and historic stance and rejects meeting this fool,” it said in reference to Trump.
The statement concluded on a warning for President Salih.
“If, God forbid, this [stance to reject the meeting with Trump] is violated, then Iraq and the people of Iraq will not accept or welcome the one who put his hand in the hand of criminals and terrorists, on whose hands is the blood of Iraqis.”
While the military factions of Iran-backed groups in Iraq were stern in their warning, a politician belonging to Sadiqun – part of the Iran-backed Fatih bloc, composed of the PMF’s political branches – called on the Iraqi President to avoid meeting Trump in far milder terms.
“In respect of the blood of martyrs and for the sovereignty of Iraq, I call on the President to reject meeting the criminal Trump or any American official in the Davos summit,” Hassan Saleem, Sadiqun MP, said in a statement on Tuesday.
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